Here's the link showing the asphalt going down after the paver edging is set. Just requires some care. To be doubly secure of a firm edge, I would anchor the paving stones with an edging restraint. (Not shown.) The one-inch cap on our driveway was put down by the previous owner, within the last 15 years, I gather from the neighbours. The section pictured began falling apart after the POs removed the dumpster they used to "pack"; no protective plywood was placed under it. You can also see the crack patterns that are everywhere. I don't know when these started reappearing. (It's a teardown, so I don't care much.) Since the expected useful life of an asphalt driveway is ten years, according to HUD (see table C-3), I'd say they got their money's worth.

The stuff that I was able to catch was obvious - mostly areas where they didn't dig everything up and lay a new base as promised (they were only removing and replacing the areas that were in bad shape). The other major problem was with the areas where the driveway met other paved areas (walkways, garages). When adding 2 inches on top of an existing driveway, it is a lot of work to get things graded out so that the two surfaces meet and still have ~two inches of new material all the way up to the edge. My contractor tried to just scrape out a little bit next to those areas. If I had let them go, in many places I would have ended up with less than a half inch of new material over a not very solid base. I am sure those areas would have been a problem eventually. When I called him on it he got pretty mad, but he then dug and graded them properly. The truth is that a lot of what the contractor is going to do is out of your control. For example, the asphalt mix should be at least a certain temperature when it gets put down. How hot is hot enough? Who knows, but you aren't going to go out there with a thermometer anyway. There is a fine line between trying to make sure things get done right and antagonizing the contractor. The latter may be necessary, but only as an absolute last resort. Otherwise they are going to do whatever they can to just get it done and get out. What you can do is to ask the contractor about things when you get your estimate so that they know what you expect before they bid. As I said, you might not measure the temperature of the mix, but when you get the estimate you could ask them how far they will have to go to get the asphalt and whether that is close enough to allow them to get the entire load down while it is still hot. At least if you ask those sorts of questions they will know that you've done your homework. In the end though, you are going to have to trust someone to a great extent. If I am serious about a couple of contractors, I like to try to get references from them. Not just give me the names of 3 of your friends and relatives, but I ask for something specific - in the case of a driveway I might ask for a reference from someone in my area who had them replace a driveway of similar size 5 years ago. You could still get scammed, but in my experience (both at home and on my job) the honest people will try to get you a reference that at least partially matches your request and the shifty ones will just give you their standard references. Of course you have to at least call the references to find that out. I have to admit that I didn't follow my own advice with this contractor. A guy around the corner from me gave me their number after they did his drive and he was really happy with them. Then, I thought a guy I know was recommending them, but that turned out to be a miscommunication (long story). The moral is, don't skimp on the references. I hope this helps.

I need to repave my asphalt driveway, so I've been investigating how it should be done as well. I came across this site for the National Paving Contractors Association. They have a consumer's message board area where you can post questions and paving-related issues, and some of their professional members tend to provide answers. It is not all that active, but you might want to post what you did here and see what they say about your situation. You don't have to register, but they also review what you want to post before they put it on the message board. Here's a link: http://pavementpro.com/forum/ For what it's worth, in the first consumer topic area, Residential Questions and Answers, someone posted a topic titled "Poor Paving Job" that sounds similar to what you posted, except it is someone from New Hampshire. You might want to take a look and see what some of the pro paving contractors had to say about gravel base and asphalt layer thicknesses in that particular instance. Not saying your situation is similar to this one, but it might give you an idea of what you can expect back as a reply. Good luck.

The original post for this thread is almost two months old now... I wonder what the OP chose to do...? It’s an interesting question relevant to a house on our street. They are nearing the end of spending what must be a small fortune to do a very large paver driveway for the house - which was a tear down-and-rebuilt-big-new-house in an older area. It’s a very common situation in our neighbourhood. Two things affect paver driveways here in our climate - freeze-thaw causing unevenness, and weed and tree seeds blowing in and germinating between the paving stones. There is informal betting about how long it’s going to take before the driveway at this house looks a weedy mess! Concrete lasts a bit longer but usually eventually succumbs to cracking from freeze-thaw and is a big job to tear up and replace. Asphalt has the flexibility to cope better with freeze-thaw and so resists weeds a bit better too. When it does need replacing, it is easier, faster, less expensive to replace. Many ‘high end’ new builds in the neighbourhood compromise by using a paver ‘ribbon’ on the sides with asphalt as the main surface. The ‘ribbon’ does get weeds germinating but at least is a smaller square footage to weed! So I think climate and regional tastes make a difference from practical, cost, and resale implications points of view. So, I don’t think there’s a clear ‘winner’ that applies everywhere.